Water ponding? Are there frogs? And more food for thought...

Some wise guy in the PUB, the national water agency, must have felt very smug when he trotted out the term "water ponding" (or just "ponding") to describe the flooding of parts of the Orchard shopping belt yet again.

But one letter writer to TODAY (27 Dec, page 15), Peter Loon Seng Chee, was not amused. This is what he said in his piece headlined "Call it what it is: Flooding":

From a "once in 50 years" event, flooding is now expected in almost every heavy downpour, reducing our first-world roads to a wet mess. But in "No floods in Orchard Rd, just 'ponding': PUB" (Dec 24). this was referred to as "ponding".

It would be sad if we resort to word usage to dissipate the impact of these floods. We have been offered reasons, and remedies have been promised, but the issue has become a crisis over the past two years.

Do our officials have a handle on this problem? Has the incessant load of new developments in recent years exceeded the limit of our national drainage system?

The new head of the national water agency, from this month, is an ex-Navy chief. What are the credentials that enable him to head PUB?

When my friends from overseas talk about visiting Singapore, they joke about packing canoes and scuba gear, and I am embarrassed to have nothing to say in defence. It is time for a solution.

Meanwhile, netizens were having a field day making fun of the term. Here's one pic from a forum thread:

In the same forum thread, a netizen wrote:

So the word flood is taboo in Singapore? The new word now is ponding. So should there be a major flood, the Straits Times and Channel News Asia and all MSM's should replace the word flood with ponding. Example, "At 12.15 today, there was a major ponding in Orchard Road and many cars stalled due to an extremely heavy downpour. In some cases, the waters reached over the roof of cars that parked in the basements of Tanglin Mall. The ponding in a few areas caused traffic snarls that hampered the work of PUB."

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Most usage of ponding -- in the building trade -- refers to roof ponding. There is of course the more general meaning: the creation of puddles and ponds, the latter becoming the ideal setting for frogs to make out come night-time.

Speaking of frogs, there is a video clip that shows a bull frog "playing" a computer game on a smartphone. There is an interesting twist towards  the end of the clip. Here's the insing.com link:

http://news.insing.com/tabloid/temperamental-bull-frog-uses-phone/id-dd223f00

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And now, for more food for thought:

Razor clams? Must be cutting-edge cuisine. You've gotta have the guts (or stomach of steel) for it! Then there's this interesting burger:

I may or may not be anal retentive but why would I want a BUMger? If the pattie is meat, which anatomical area is it from? And why "kungfu"? Does it mean, one bite, and you get a kick out of it? (In the bum?)

I like this last pic below. As reported in ST a while back, there is this Thai woman in a Bangkok neighbourhood who conducts cooking classes for tourists. Many Thais have nicknames and hers is Poo, hence: